Need More!

[lscamaro]

Alright so not too long ago, I decided I was going to get into detailing my car a little more seriously. So I went out and bought a pc, some microfiber pads, some polish and decided to try my hand at polishing. I've yet to do much just because school has me busy. Well school ends in 2 weeks for me and I have all summer to play around with products and such.

Here's what I have right now:

PC 7424xp
2 Microfiber Polishing Pads
1 Microfiber Compounding Pad
Optimum Hyper Compound
Optimum Hyper Polish
Blackfire Wet Diamond All Finish Paint Protection

Here's where I need your guys help. I'm looking into a few foam pads for polishing (I want to test foam vs microfiber to see what I like best), I want a foam pad for applying wax or sealant, and that's it for now I think. So which should I buy for these purposes and how much of each should I look into?

Yes I think I've caught the detailing bug

[axis]

If you go to autogeeks or autopia and get to where the pads are, you should find a nice list of the colored pads and what their best suited for. Black or red is what they recommend for waxes and sealants. One or two should be plenty. You can probably get a package deal on several pads, if you want to try a few different ones out. I have Orange, Yellow, white, and black pads. I like the Lake Country pads.

Here's the list.
http://www.autogeek.net/lake-country-ccs-pack1.html

[CamaroDreams07]

This is what I would recommend:

http://www.autopia-carcare.com/flat-pads-6-pack.html

1/2 orange, 2/3 white, 2 blue.

Mark one blue pad with a BF on the back and use it for your BFWD. I say that because once you use BFWD on a pad, you will never get it all out. That will forever be a BFWD pad, which is fine. You still have another blue pad to mess with other waxes and sealants.

[lscamaro]

I assume you can't just throw the foam pads into the washer like you can the microfibers so anything special I should do to clean them?

Okay, so I'd do compound with orange and polish with white? And apply wax or sealant with blue?

[CamaroDreams07]

Originally Posted by lscamaro

I assume you can't just throw the foam pads into the washer like you can the microfibers so anything special I should do to clean them?

Okay, so I'd do compound with orange and polish with white? And apply wax or sealant with blue?

Correct. Cleaning foam pads is the worst part of detailing. It's the bane of my existence and a huge part of the reason I use almost exclusively MF discs now.

Anyway, to clean, what I do is dunk them in water, spray some APC on the pad, and scrub it with a brush like this (which you should already have for your MF pads anyway). Sometimes it helps to soak them in a bucket of water with some APC as well. Polishes come out easier than sealants for obvious reasons. They make special pad cleaning bucket things, but I've never used one.

Orange- cutting
White- polishing
Blue- sealant, liquid waxes, etc. You can also use a blue pad (or a gray) to apply a jeweling polish like SF4500. The pads have no cut and soft composition so it really allows you to finesse that last little bit of shine out of the paint when you want to go balls-out crazy car show finish.

On my vehicle, and for certain clients with a discerning eye and deeper pockets, I do my cutting and polishing with MF discs followed by a final polish with a blue pad and SF4500.

[lscamaro]

Originally Posted by CamaroDreams07

Correct. Cleaning foam pads is the worst part of detailing. It's the bane of my existence and a huge part of the reason I use almost exclusively MF discs now.

Anyway, to clean, what I do is dunk them in water, spray some APC on the pad, and scrub it with a brush like this (which you should already have for your MF pads anyway). Sometimes it helps to soak them in a bucket of water with some APC as well. Polishes come out easier than sealants for obvious reasons. They make special pad cleaning bucket things, but I've never used one.

Orange- cutting
White- polishing
Blue- sealant, liquid waxes, etc. You can also use a blue pad (or a gray) to apply a jeweling polish like SF4500. The pads have no cut and soft composition so it really allows you to finesse that last little bit of shine out of the paint when you want to go balls-out crazy car show finish.

On my vehicle, and for certain clients with a discerning eye and deeper pockets, I do my cutting and polishing with MF discs followed by a final polish with a blue pad and SF4500.

Alright, thanks! I've seen the pad cleaning bucket by grit guard but for 130, I don't think I can justify the price since I only really do this to my car. I've been wanting to try out sf4500, how do you like it? Does it justify the $40 price tag?

[ihaveacamaro]

Not Matt, but Sf4500 is pretty much one of the best finishing polishes out there!

[CamaroDreams07]

Originally Posted by lscamaro

Alright, thanks! I've seen the pad cleaning bucket by grit guard but for 130, I don't think I can justify the price since I only really do this to my car. I've been wanting to try out sf4500, how do you like it? Does it justify the $40 price tag?

Originally Posted by ihaveacamaro

Not Matt, but Sf4500 is pretty much one of the best finishing polishes out there!

^^The man speaks the truth. It's phenomenal if you want to go the extra mile and you have a set of 1% eyeballs (you see things 99% of people never would). Certainly not necessary to go to that extent for a great finish, but it really will push it over the top. It's also nice if your car doesn't really have any swirls or anything major and you just want to spruce up the paint.

So say you polish your car out to perfection and 6 months later you have kept swirls and damage to an absolute minimum and you just get a wild hair up your ass and want to restore the "pop," this is what you'd reach for.

My advice is put that $40 to better use with more necessary detailing supplies, then add these "nice to have" items when you're stocked up and have a little extra cash.

[lscamaro]

Originally Posted by ihaveacamaro

Not Matt, but Sf4500 is pretty much one of the best finishing polishes out there!

No worries, I was looking for your opinions as well!

Might have to invest in that one too then

[ihaveacamaro]

Originally Posted by lscamaro

No worries, I was looking for your opinions as well!

Might have to invest in that one too then

If you have the extra money, go for it. But if you are on a budget and allocating money to best bang for buck items, I agree with the below

Originally Posted by CamaroDreams07

My advice is put that $40 to better use with more necessary detailing supplies, then add these "nice to have" items when you're stocked up and have a little extra cash.

[lscamaro]

Originally Posted by CamaroDreams07

^^The man speaks the truth. It's phenomenal if you want to go the extra mile and you have a set of 1% eyeballs (you see things 99% of people never would). Certainly not necessary to go to that extent for a great finish, but it really will push it over the top. It's also nice if your car doesn't really have any swirls or anything major and you just want to spruce up the paint.

So say you polish your car out to perfection and 6 months later you have kept swirls and damage to an absolute minimum and you just get a wild hair up your ass and want to restore the "pop," this is what you'd reach for.

My advice is put that $40 to better use with more necessary detailing supplies, then add these "nice to have" items when you're stocked up and have a little extra cash.

Originally Posted by ihaveacamaro

If you have the extra money, go for it. But if you are on a budget and allocating money to best bang for buck items, I agree with the below

Do you guys have any recommendations of bang for the buck items? I've been reading a lot about the carpro eraser. Seems like the same thing as an ipa wipedown but don't really know.

[CamaroDreams07]

Originally Posted by lscamaro

Do you guys have any recommendations of bang for the buck items? I've been reading a lot about the carpro eraser. Seems like the same thing as an ipa wipedown but don't really know.

Hands down best bang for the buck item is ONR.

Eraser is the same idea as IPA. Supposedly more effective, but I've never had a problem with plain old IPA

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[ihaveacamaro]

Originally Posted by lscamaro

Do you guys have any recommendations of bang for the buck items? I've been reading a lot about the carpro eraser. Seems like the same thing as an ipa wipedown but don't really know.

let's see... assuming you've listed all you have above:

Blackfire Midnight Sun is my overall all time favorite wax taking in consideration everything price, packaging, ease of use, etc.

Chemical guys soaps are some of the cheapest and most effective. I don't recommend anything else from them though.

Meguiar's D156 is my favorite spray wax (although in reality it is a spray sealant). Pretty cheap too.

ONR is the best rinseless and not badly priced either.

Looking for something specific? CD07 has that huge list, but that's his best of category list not best bang for buck list.

As for eraser, I wouldn't bother unless you are going to be applying a coating.

[ec1990]

Originally Posted by ihaveacamaro

let's see... assuming you've listed all you have above:

Blackfire Midnight Sun is my overall all time favorite wax taking in consideration everything price, packaging, ease of use, etc.

Chemical guys soaps are some of the cheapest and most effective. I don't recommend anything else from them though.

Meguiar's D156 is my favorite spray wax (although in reality it is a spray sealant). Pretty cheap too.

ONR is the best rinseless and not badly priced either.

Looking for something specific? CD07 has that huge list, but that's his best of category list not best bang for buck list.

As for eraser, I wouldn't bother unless you are going to be applying a coating.

Have you used ONRWW? Wondering if it would be a better option.

OP,
I recently picked up Sonax net shield and the beading is awesome. I was it wary of applying it as some said it was tough, but I had no issues. Beading is crazy, but it is a bit steep for a sealant.

also make sure to use coupon codes you can easily find 15-20% off for autogeek, autopia, detailers domain. Always helps to save money or as an excuse to buy more and most of those websites will let you add a free sample of certain items, on any purchase above $50.